First impressions review: The Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader, by 一只大雁

 

This Chinese web novel has a deliberately silly premise: There’s a war going on between the Vast Alliance and the Demonic Creed, when a spy for the former supposedly discovers that the new Creed Lord, Ji Han, is gay and has a crush on the Alliance’s champion, Zhao Jiangui. So, the Alliance begs Jiangui to go and seduce the opposition's leader and save his people. The training for this does not go well; Jiangui has zero understanding of or talent for coquetry. So the desperate leaders just give him a full script of pickup lines and send him on his way. Of course, as it happens, the whole thing was a misunderstanding…but will Zhao somehow end up charming the Creed Lord anyway?

I snorted out loud when our hero delivers his first line, because both it and the whole situation were so awkward. But Zhao is a Hero and therefore cannot back down from a quest, so he is going to seduce this dude even if both of them claim not to like men, and neither of them is feeling anything other than generalized aesthetic appreciation and annoyance right now! The carriage driver is every cringe-sensitive reader, crouching with his hands over his ears going: “I don’t hear anything, I don’t see anything, don’t silence me, don’t silence me, Creed Lord, don’t kill me to silence me…” Ji Han, meanwhile, decides to be as cold and irritating as possible to get this weirdo to stop following him. Further comedy ensues.

Things get a bit more serious when a trio of assassins come for Ji Han, and Zhao Jiangui obviously has to help defend him unless he wants his efforts to be in vain - even though these efforts mainly involved exploding eggs all over the kitchen and both swordsmen getting blackout drunk and falling asleep. The action scenes are pretty good…though they don’t replace the humor. For one thing, people keep trying to keep Zhao from fighting, based on the rumor he had, with great embarrassment, caused to be spread that he could barely walk (wink wink, nudge nudge). Because both Ji Han and Zhao Jiangui are sword nerds who are bad at talking about touchy-feely things, they bond through these dangers pretty readily but are very slow to actually A) realize their own feelings and B) realize the other feels the same way even – no, especially – when other characters start assuming things and even writing spicy fanfic about their relationship! I suppose I should note at this point that the story itself is, like 'Heaven Official's Blessing', pretty PG and wholesome – despite a good bit of inuendo, all that’s actually “onscreen” are a few kisses.

However, there were a number of aspects of the story that could have been improved. First, why is the “Demon Creed” called that? At first I assumed Ji Han was an actual demon, but that just seems to be an insult; his people appear just as human as the Alliance. The two groups are referred to as the “chaotic” and “righteous” factions, but I have no idea what that really means in terms of their beliefs or “cultivation techniques”. It would have been neat to see some evidence of those differences, as we get in ‘The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation’. Second, I didn’t get nearly as clear a mental image of what the two leads look like as I did in either HOB or GDC. That would have been nice! Finally…is being a “cut sleeve” frowned on in this fictional version of ancient China or not? Initially it seems like being attracted to other men is stigmatized…but then like half the characters turn out to be gay, and even those that aren’t are mostly rooting for the leads to get together. So, which is it? This “why is everyone suddenly OK with this?” issue was also present in GDC, but not to nearly the same degree. In real-life Ancient China, attitudes varied by dynasty and by the social statuses of the people involved, but it was always a more friendly place for same-sex relationships than, say, Medieval Europe! Emperors frequently had male lovers – that’s where the term “cut sleeve” comes from, in fact. So it isn’t that I think the atmosphere here is too friendly, just that it doesn’t seem internally consistent.

 

Overall recommendation: Good light fun for when you want a bit of a laugh and some wholesome feels. I read the free fan translation by Chichi.

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